BE A TRUE REVOLUTIONARY

[Closing address at the Second Session of the First National Committee of
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.]

The present session has summed up our experience in the past period and laid
down various guiding principles.

We have done this work jointly at this gathering of representatives of all
the nationalities, democratic classes, democratic parties, people's organizations
and democratic personages from every walk of life. Not only have the members
of the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference
taken part in the discussions, many cadres of the Central People's Government
and of the people's governments (or military and administrative commissions)
of the greater administrative areas,[1] provinces
and municipalities as well as representatives from the consultative committees
of the provincial and municipal conferences of people from all circles
[2] and many specially invited patriotic personages
have also sat in and joined the discussions. Thus we have been able to draw
together opinions from all quarters, review our past work and set forth guiding
principles for the future. I hope that we will continue to use this method
and that the people's governments (or military and administrative commissions)
of the greater administrative areas, provinces and municipalities will adopt
it too. So far our committee sessions have been advisory in nature. But in
practice the Central People's Government will as a matter of course adopt
and put into effect the decisions made at our sessions, as it should.

We have unanimously approved the report on the work of the National Committee
and the various reports on the work of the Central People's Government. These
are the reports on agrarian reform, on political, military, economic and
financial work, on taxation, culture and education, and on the work of the
judiciary. All of them are good. In these reports the experience of our work
in the past has been properly summed up and the guiding principles for our
work in the future have been laid down. There were many items on the agenda
of our session, because work has started or expanded in every field since
the founding of our new state. Throughout the country the people are vigorously
unfolding a great and genuine people's revolutionary struggle on all fronts,
a struggle that is as great as it is unprecedented on the military, economic,
ideological and agrarian reform fronts, and the work in every field awaits
summing up and needs guiding principles. That is why we had so many items
on the agenda. We shall hold two sessions yearly as required by law, one
with a full and the other with a less full agenda. This is what we are called
on to do, for China is a large country with a population actually exceeding
475 million and, what is more, it finds itself in a historic period of people's
revolution. And this is what we have been doing, and I think we have done
right.

Our present session had many subjects for discussion, the central one being
the question of transforming the old land system. We have endorsed the Draft
Agrarian Reform Law [3] proposed by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China to which we have made a number
of useful amendments and supplements. This is fine. I am glad and wish to
congratulate the hundreds of millions of new China's rural population on
winning the opportunity for emancipation and the nation on winning the basic
condition for industrialization. The peasants form the bulk of China's
population. It was with their help that victory was won in the revolution,
and it is again their help that will make the industrialization of the country
possible. Therefore, the working class should actively help the peasants
carry out the agrarian reform; the urban petty bourgeoisie and national
bourgeoisie should also give their support, and still more so should all
the democratic parties and people's organizations. War and agrarian reform
are two tests everyone and every political party in China must go through
in the historical period of New Democracy. Whoever sides with the revolutionary
people is a revolutionary. Whoever sides with imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucrat-capitalism is a counter-revolutionary. Whoever sides with the
revolutionary people in word only but not in deed is a revolutionary in word.
Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word is
a true revolutionary. The test of war is basically over, and we have all
come through well, to the satisfaction of the people of the whole country.
Now it is the test of agrarian reform that we have to pass, and I hope we
shall acquit ourselves just as well as we did in the test of war. Let us
give this matter more thought, have more consultation, straighten out our
thinking, march in step and form a great anti-feudal united front, and then
we shall be able to lead the people and help them pass this test successfully.
When the tests of war and agrarian reform are passed, the remaining test
will be easy to pass, that is, the test of socialism, of country-wide socialist
transformation. As for those who have made contributions in the revolutionary
war and in the revolutionary transformation of the land system and who continue
to do so in the coming years of economic and cultural construction, the people
will not forget them when the time comes for nationalizing private industry
and socializing agriculture (which is still quite far off), and they will
have a bright future. This is how our country steadily advances; it has passed
through the war and is undergoing new-democratic reforms, and in the future
it will enter the new era of socialism unhurriedly and with proper arrangements
when our economy and culture are flourishing, when conditions are ripe and
when the transition has been fully considered and endorsed by the whole nation.
I think it is necessary to make this point clear so that people will have
confidence and stop worrying: "Don't know when I'll no longer be wanted and
be given the chance to serve the people even if I wish to." No, that won't
happen. The people and their government have no reason to reject anyone or
deny him the opportunity of making a living and rendering service to the
country, provided he is really willing to serve the people and provided he
really helped and did a good turn when the people were faced with difficulties
and keeps on doing good without giving up halfway.

With this great aim in mind, in the international sphere we must firmly unite
with the Soviet Union, the People's Democracies and the forces of peace and
democracy everywhere, and there should not be the slightest hesitation or
wavering on this question. At home, we must unite all the nationalities,
democratic classes, democratic parties, people's organizations and patriotic
democrats and consolidate the great, prestigious revolutionary united front
already in existence. Whoever contributes to the consolidation of this
revolutionary united front is doing right, and we welcome him; whoever harms
this consolidation is doing wrong, and we oppose him. To consolidate the
revolutionary united front, we must use the method of criticism and
self-criticism. The main criterion in the application of this method is our
present fundamental law -- the Common Programme. We have carried out criticism
and self-criticism at this session, basing ourselves on the Common Programme.
This is an excellent method, which impels everyone of us to uphold truth
and rectify error, and it is the only correct method for all revolutionary
people to educate and remould themselves in a people's state. The people's
democratic dictatorship uses two methods. Towards the enemy, it uses the
method of dictatorship, that is, for as long a period of time as is necessary
it does not permit them to take part in political activity and compels them
to obey the law of the People's Government, to engage in labour and, through
such labour, be transformed into new men. Towards the people, on the contrary,
it uses the method of democracy and not of compulsion, that is, it must
necessarily let them take part in political activity and does not compel
them to do this or that but uses the method of democracy to educate and persuade.
Such education is self-education for the people, and its basic method is
criticism and self-criticism. I hope that this method will be used by all
the nationalities, democratic classes, democratic parties, people's organizations
and patriotic democrats in the country.

NOTES

1. At that time, the country was divided into six greater
administrative areas, namely, the Northeast, North China, East China, the
Central South, the Southwest and the Northwest, with a bureau in each
representing the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Each of
the five areas except North China had its administrative organ. That of the
Northeast was called the people's government, while in the other four it
was known as the military and administrative commission. In November 1952
these were all renamed administrative councils, and one such council was
also established in North China. In 1954 all the administrative councils
were abolished.

2. The consultative committees of conferences of people
from all circles at the provincial and municipal level were elected by
conferences of people from all circles at the same level. When the latter
were not in session, the former were charged with the function of assisting
the people's governments in carrying out the conferences' resolutions.

3. This refers to the "Draft Agrarian Reform Law of the
People's Republic of China". The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party presented the draft to the Second Session of the First National Committee
of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on June 14, 1950
for discussion. After it had been discussed and endorsed by the session,
the Central People's Government Council approved the draft. On June 30 of
the same year, Mao Tsetung, Chairman of the Central People's Government,
promulgated the "Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China".